So Many reflections!
I DID NOT expect everything to be so organized in the city. They have done well. I felt welcome, safe, comfortable. In the metro, taxis and streets.
Bombay vs Shanghai: There is no comparison. I read articles in how you have to pass miles of slums after exiting Mumbai int’l Airport and the writers somehow derived from this very cosmetic approach that China is ahead and India’s democracy is making a laggard with respect to Infrastructure, financial reform and so forth. But let me tell You Shanghai is advanced in more ways than looks. Streets, police, security , you couldn’t tell it from Singapore. And Mumbai? Struggling with multitude of problems: Inlfux of immigrants, lack of hygiene( China is 10 times as much cleaner as India) right wing politics, basic infrastructure like roads, transport? I would sign up for Communism any day after what I have seen in Shanghai. While Shanghai and the rest of China are moving ahead at breakneck speed, Mumbai is gripped by issues like Marathi Manoos (outsiders vs local debate) 60 years after independence we cannot seem to focus our minds on relevant problems!. Sure there is debate it in India but most of it is over irrelevant issues. While China united to host the Olympics and expos we threaten to block commonwealth games for Gujjar(backward community) reservation in govt jobs or some crap like that.
On Chinese growth
Human rights? Ok fine you don’t get free news. But where the fuck is news free anyway? In India, we had top reporters acting as lobbyists. US news is uber partisan. If control can create so many opportunities for China and its people so be it. China and India didn’t have the liberty to loot the world for half a millennia so they need an alternative approach to development. Billions of dollars got robbed, people lost their homes in the States because of speculation and where was the legal system to protect them? To be honest is there a better model for development? I think China shows the way and makes every other struggling developing economy look like a loser because they can’t figure it out.
I saw a couple on a bicycle, they were in their 30s, the wife was holding on to the husband and both were smiling. If after a hard days work, they can go home, eat well and educate their children then poverty has ended for them. And I think it has, for many a Chinese, better than the UN, the World bank, the IMF could have helped achieved. Yes, it’s not really communism they followed as model for growth but if you ask me to summarize my thoughts I’d say neither Lenin nor Marx but the average Chinese is the true winner in this development story.
